In a nutshell: It's WWZ with Aliens.

Massive Alien franchise lover, so this was instantly on my motion tracker. After putting in a fair few hours I found myself warming to it as a whole. It may lack the more subtle tension and tactics of what I hoped for (I was hoping for door welding, hacking and tactful, slower gameplay like Alien Swarm) but it does what it does well.

Yo! Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen!
At its core, it's a horde-based shooter with 4 campaigns, consisting of 3 20-minute levels each and a horde mode (unlocked on completion). It has a range of difficulty options, but later ones suffer from bullet-sponge enemies to increase the challenge instead of - you know - ANYTHING else.

At launch, it has 5 classes (another coming the day of writing this for the free season one content), which offers different skills, weapons and play-styles. It features an unlockable skills system, whereby you level your character up to level 8, gradually getting access to more and better skills. This allows you to customise your character however you like. Certain class skills are not limited by class - and are indeed universally usable on all characters - which offers a surprising amount of different mixes to try out.

It also features consumable items like sentries, mines and electric grids, which can be bought using mission funds. These help on the higher difficulties when facing the swarms dotted throughout the levels. It features a large amount of weapons - which they themselves can be leveled up and modded with up to 3 attachments - further customising your marine to your liking. Weapons are broken into the handgun, CQW, rifle and heavy category. Each class has access to two of these categories - usually ones that tie into their preferred playstyle.

Look into my eye
Graphically, it looks lovely. Nothing to complain about there. Sound and music are also on point. Environments are well detailed and interesting. Each campaign offers a different scenario to play in, ranging from a space station to ancient ruins. Environments take cues from pretty much all the films (even the newer Prometheus) and the game contains lore from each as well. This offers a surprising amount of variety.

We're on the express elevator to hell, goin' down!
The main negatives at the time of writing are as follows: Tedious higher difficulties, with bullet-sponge mechanics. The matchmaking system is a mess. Finding games at present with randoms is a frustrating experience. There is also no text or voice chat in-game, making communication with teammates more difficult that in should be. There are a few teething bugs like dailies not refreshing and skins not unlocking as well. Other than this, the game suffers by not having an "AI director" like L4D. While some parts of levels are different each time you play, everything is scripted, so it's just the game choosing one over another. Enemies spawn in the exact same places. It would have been nice to have more random spawns here to keep things interesting on subsequent play-thoughts.

We’re in the pipe. Five by five.
Overall, it's a solid, if a little underwhelming horde shooter with frantic gameplay, set in the Aliens universe.

Jimbo Rating: 8/10